Each woman is made to feel it is her own cross to bear if she can’t be the perfect clone of the male superman and the perfect clone of the feminine mystique.
BETTY FRIEDANYou have to say no to the old ways before you can begin to find the new yes you need.
More Betty Friedan Quotes
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While I had been, I guess, quite brilliant, academically, in my college years, I also had been editor of the paper, and I loved that. And, that was a much more active thing. And I missed it when I was doing graduate work.
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If you were very bright and you became head of a department, as I did, of the psychology department, you were encouraged to go on to graduate work. But as a women you didn’t even think about discrimination.
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American women were frustrated in just the role of housewife – but they also managed to enlarge it. And they weren’t just housewives, they were community leaders.
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Some people think I’m saying, ‘Women of the world unite — you have nothing to lose but your men. It’s not true. You have nothing to lose but your vacuum cleaners.
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Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?
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It is perhaps beside the point to remark that bowling alleys and supermarkets have nursery facilities, while schools and colleges and scientific laboratories and government offices do not.
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The problem that has no name-which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities-is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.
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There is absolutely no evidence that it is harmful to children if their mother’s health, well-being and autonomy and control of her own destiny is maximized by work outside the home.
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The feminists had destroyed the old image of woman, but they could not erase the hostility, the prejudice, the discrimination that still remained.
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The situation of women and men is not comparable to worker-boss or black and white.
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When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.
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It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.
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Men weren’t really the enemy – they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.
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When one begins to think about it, America depends rather heavily on women’s passive dependence, their femininity. Femininity, if one still wants to call it that, makes American women a target and a victim of the sexual sell.
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You have to say no to the old ways before you can begin to find the new yes you need.
BETTY FRIEDAN